Zac Alstin…

Here in Australia, the parliament recently rejected a same-sex marriage bill by an overwhelming majority of 98 votes to 42. There may be political forces involved, but it was good to have even a temporary semblance of common sense.

It’s a lucky thing Zac is a furriner because the whole “nuanced and dispassionate” thing is completely unAmerican at election time and we’d need to exile him to someplace like Australia for being a weirdo if he started up with that kind of thing here. Fortunately, he was born in exile, saving us the trouble.

It isn’t as if there aren’t Americans trying have that same nuanced and dispassionate debate about a host of issues like SSM, and I’d assume that even in a non-American country (I know, hard to imagine) there could be a few – a few mind you – who attempt to push this or that issue with the same over the top approaches you see here, election year or not.

ivan_the_mad

Phobia and prejudice aren’t the same thing? But everyone knows tha- … never mind.

Andy, Bad Person

What a great article. Thanks, Zac!

Leave the term for the interested parties to fight over. It is only useful as an indicator of something real. When it distorts and confuses more than it conveys, there is nothing for a dispassionate thinker to gain from its use.

In other words, when a word no longer clearly describes reality, it has failed in its function as a word. It is accomplishing the opposite of what a word is supposed to do.

Zac

Glad you liked it Andy,BP! You’re 100% correct! A bad word is a symbol for something that doesn’t actually exist, we can’t use the symbol without implicitly affirming a non-existent thing – a false reality. Everyone knows the example of the loaded question: “Have you stopped beating your wife yet, Yes or No?” Words such as ‘homosexual’ and ‘homophobia’ are like that entire question compressed into a single word.

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